The Plastic Jungle

Just another night in the Plastic Jungle

Where Ruin practices his newfound spell

Ruin waited in the shadows of an alleyway for a patient. He was in a section of the Plastic Jungle where a couple of street docs had offices, hoping to poach some of their patients without drawing attention to himself. It wasn’t til about 2 am til he found what he was looking for. The ork was tall and broad as a door, limping along. It wasn’t a drunken stumble, but more like a wound. He was probably headed to Tusk, an ork street doc a block away who worked for cheap and asked no questions. Ruin assensed the ork briefly and determined the ork was scared and in pain. Perfect.

Ruin stepped from the shadows. “Heya chummer. Headed to Tusk? Maybe I can help heal ya at a discount. What do you say?”

The ork recoiled and pulled his streetline special grunting “Who are you? What are you trying to pull?”

Ruin gave a formal bow. “Ruin, at your service. I’m learning to heal and I need people to practice healing. I can see the blood running down your leg and I think I can help. Best part is that you just pay me what you want.”

“What’s the catch?” The ork lowered his pistol slightly.

“No catch, pal. Just trying to practice my new spell. If it doesn’t work you pay nothing. If it does work pay me whatever you want. And don’t tell Tusk you found me here.” Ruin smiled broadly.

The ork hesitated a moment, then relented. Never underestimate the value of a smile, Ruin thought to himself. The Ork walked a few feet into the alley where Ruin was. Ruin stepped closer and looked at the wounded leg. Ruin could make out 5 or 6 little spots where lead had sunk into the leg. Probably buckshot blast and probably from long range, since it wasn’t bleeding very much. The ork’s pants leg was shredded, though.

“This will only take a moment.” Ruin’s hands glowed a dark purple neon and he made a loud humming noise that increased in intensity. Ruin laid his hands on the wound, and cried “Borahaz, naguilar!” There was a purple neon flash from Ruin’s hands. He lifted his hands and stepped away.

A few seconds passed, and some of the holes started to close. A few pieces of buckshot popped out. The ork squirmed with pain, then after a few seconds smiled with relief.

“You’re gonna want to stay off your feet as much as you can for a couple days, but that should take care of it.”

“And I just pay whatever I want?”

“That’s the idea.” Ruin smiled.

The ork raised his pistol and started grinning obscenely. “Ha ha. I know. How about you pay me? Give me your money, old man!”

“You don’t want to do that.” Ruin sighed.

Lights filled the alleyway and sirens started shrieking. 2 squad cars screeched to a halt around 50 feet away and Knight Errant officers started jumping out of the cars, weapons drawn. The ork panicked. He dropped the pistol and started running down the street, his limp forgotten. The officers fired a few shots at him and yelled for him to stop, but the ork kept running.

Ruin waited til the ork was out of sight til he dropped the illusion. The cops disappeared and the sirens stopped screaming. Trid phantasm saves the day again! Ruin giggled. He didn’t really need the money anyway, and liked the practice. He picked up the pistol and examined it. “This piece of shit is as likely to explode in my hand as fire.” Ruin tossed it into a nearby dumpster and sneaked out of the area before Tusk was alerted.

Out of character – During downtime Ruin increases his stealth and arcana by one rank and learns the Heal spell. He didn’t like seeing Bam Bam at his feet bleeding out and not having a way to help the dwarf.